


Moon Child

by Svirdilu



Series: What-if Wednesday [3]
Category: Roleplay - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-08-01 07:28:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16280261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Svirdilu/pseuds/Svirdilu





	Moon Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MasterOfThePen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterOfThePen/gifts).



When Rosch is born, the moon is bright and full, gleaming over the ocean surface like it would over a mer's scales. A good omen, they yell in the currents, a moon's child. He'll lead them to glory both in night and in day, spread the seas over the land, summon fish and life and good fortune...

The storm comes bare hours after, unexpected and violent, tearing apart the waves and covering the light of the sky. Those speaking of omens fall silent; better that than trying to put to words what this one means. Rosch's parents watch the weather with wary eyes as they hold their new child, and whisper to each other about where they've hidden all their good-luck charms.

The storm passes. Rosch grows strong and healthy, playing with sharks and minnows, octopi and mollusks. His parents sigh in relief; his caretakers give him more and more free reign. The charms that once hung about his chambers are allowed to rust, be packed away. But there's one secret the little mer-prince hasn't told a soul, and it's this:

Rosch can't see the moon.

He knows it's there, once he's old enough to understand. The sea is darker some nights each month than others, and the tides rise and recede as they should. The sky, though, the sky - no matter how hard he searches for even a glint of light, how others gasp and exclaim at the beauty of it on clear nights... it's all dark to him. No moon, no stars, an endless unknowable mass of darkness.

The little lionfish mer learns very quickly to pretend. No one takes him seriously as a child, they all think he's just playing games, and so he begins to shy away from sharing; once he's grown older, it's far too late to insist. Everyone would wonder why he didn't do it earlier and decide he just wants attention. So he gasps at the night sky with everyone else, plays in shining water sparkles and pretends what's above is a reflection of them.

All the while, as he grows from child to adolescent to adult, he wonders. What would it be like to see the moon he was born under?

The years pass, and it's time for his coming-of-age. The whole undersea kingdom turns out to celebrate, and Rosch spends a wonderful day with his sword friend Sonja despite all the fuss and bustle. The sun sets in the most beautiful array of red and gold and purple he's ever seen, and even the dark's encroachment doesn't seem as forbidding as before.

Hugo himself, the Sea Prophet's mouthpiece, comes to deliver the blessing that will step Rosch through the door to adulthood. He watches Rosch with gleaming eyes throughout, and the lionfish prince takes care to be on his best behavior. Until, until -

"Look to the moon!" the Prophet's man exclaims, raising both his arms, albino-white orca tail lashing through the water in an expression of ecstasy. Around Rosch, every mer's face lifts to the sky. As he always does, Rosch takes a hurried glance about himself to check the general direction in which he should look -

Behind him, Hugo gasps. Two hands fall upon Rosch's broad shoulders, and he flinches. "Sir?"

"Point out the moon to me," Hugo tells him in a concerned whisper. His whisper isn't quiet, despite his apparent best efforts - a few mer nearby twist their heads back to Rosch in confusion.

Rosch hesitates, tries to look around to get a clearer direction - and Hugo claps his hands sharply in front of the prince's face, shocking him enough that he loses track. "Without looking anywhere but up, prince."

Slowly, nervously, Rosch tries to point. He knows even as he does that he's deeply wrong. Hugo's tail whacks against his, close as the priest swims, and _Rosch knows he's pointing wrong_.

"It's a curse," Hugo whispers, his tone horrified. And then, before either Rosch or his parents can object, he raises his voice to boom over the whole crowd - "It's a curse! The prince cannot see the moon!"

Shock and distress ripples through the crowd. Nobody can say what this is, not entirely, but one thing is clear - Rosch no longer has a blessing from the moon. The moon has _rejected_ him. He can't become an adult.

The prince's clear, unmuddled future drains away around him.

Minutes pass before he's processing what's going on around him again over the buzz of his own thoughts. Hugo's hand lies heavy on his shoulder, as if meant to be a comfort. "Loathe as I am to say this," he's telling Rosch's parents, "He may have to go to a seawitch. There's none in this ocean more knowledgable about curses than they."

"Heiss or Selvan?"

"Heiss, of course," Hugo responds with a grimace. "Selvan... Selvan still dreams of the olden days, the old royal family. If he thinks not helping will give them a chance to return to the throne, he may hesitate to make a bargain."

Just like that, it's all arranged. Before Rosch can catch up with the mess of rapids the world has become, he's on the way to the seawitch's lair with a net-pack on his back. A ring of shells circles his arm, a last-minute present from Sonja; a drowned man's golden teeth hangs on a string about his neck, the seawitch's accustomed payment, provided by his parents. Aside from that, he is alone. 

(One must always visit a seawitch alone.)

He swims, and he swims, and he swims. The sea is cool and unwelcoming, and he longs for the embrace of daylight above the surface, so he can jump into it like the dolphins do. But he knows that seawitches must be seen under the low shine of moonlight, and if he takes too long he'll have to wait another full day. Even the thought of it is too much to bear. So he swims. His tail aches, his fins feel ragged and worn away with the effort, and he still swims.

It's many hours still until he sees the entrance to Heiss's underwater grove. For a few moments upon reaching it, Rosch grabs onto a stone outcropping and lets himself drift in place, exhuasted. Finally, he flicks his tail and swims within.

Heiss's lair glows subtly within, bioluminscent trails along the walls. No seawitch is to be seen, though, and Rosch swims slowly deeper and deeper - until suddenly the moonlight in the water outside is blocked out by dark, rapidly-moving ribbons. Rosch spins around in a circle of panicked bubbles, eyes wide -

As it turns out, Heiss is an eel. There's something unnatural about his scales, and after a moment Rosch works it out - he doesn't have the darker ones up top, lighter ones down bottom, as any proper seabeast should. Heiss is one tone all over, and it feels _wrong_.

"Prince Rosch, I take it?" the eelwitch smiles. Rosch swallows and tries not to feel intimidated by the wide sharp teeth and weirdly-hinging jaw, the long tail drifting around him in enclosing circles. Heiss probably means the expression kindly, the tail to be comforting.

Heiss reaches out to snap the golden tooth from around Rosch's neck. "I know exactly what you must do..."

The morning finds Rosch swimming again. He's tired, but he has a full 10 leagues to cover today, if he wants to get to the chasm Heiss mentioned in time - "New moon is when you must do it," he'd said, and then, almost gently but also as if laughing, "That's tomorrow, prince." The lionfish welcomes the sun on his back, at least, and the lightening of the pack on his back as he goes through his supplies en-route; soon he will no longer have the former.

Time passes. The sun sets, the sea changes, and the impossible blanket of darkness spreads overhead. Nothing feels familiar, but below Rosch - below him is the chasm.

He dives.

Rosch sees nothing. If it weren't for the pressure of water around him, he'd fear that he'd fallen into the night sky, into that whole terrible nothingness - even with it, his heart pumps like a scared minnow's tail. The young mer prince holds his hands out in front of him like Heiss told him to and lets his tired tail thrash behind him. Down, down, down...

His hands hit sand and he takes in a huge relieved breath, bubbles pulsing out from his gills. Here it is; the ledge Heiss promised in the dark. Carefully, slowly, he inches forward, letting his hands trail along its surface. There - there's the edge, the way into the deepest fathoms of the chasm. But he doesn't need to go that way, just perch upon the edge with his tired tail draping down, take a deep breath in, and...

"Rusalka, rusalka," Rosch sings softly. He scowls to himself, hearing the echo of his own voice in his ears - he's not sure if he's got the voice for a song. It shouldn't mean anything, though, just like the word doesn't mean anything Rosch knows. Heiss told him if he sat here and sang, something would come to help him, and that's what he'll do.

"Rusalka, rusalka," he calls into the dark. The water above presses down heavier than anything he's ever felt; he doesn't think he's been this deep before. "Rusalka, rusalka -"

A light blinks into being in the endless dark on the third repetition, and Rosch muffles a gasp. There it is, there it must be - he springs off the ledge and darts toward it with a, "Hey -"

The light sways back and forth faintly for a moment - then it suddenly springs into motion, spinning toward Rosch. The mer's smile widens, and he reaches out -

Something sharp and _angry_ slams into him with the force of a furious shark, ripping into his chest. Rosch trashes, all elation dropping from him in that moment, and fights back the best he can with his sharp spines and claws. He gets flashes of his opponent through the faint luminscence the orb - the orb attached to a stalk on the being's _head_ \- throws through the water - a sleek strong body, fur like a seal. _Teeth_ like one, from the terrible cold waters of the south. 

It's not enough. Rosch knows he's stronger, but the dark is overwhelming, and the little bulb of light disorienting, darting around and often moving in a way very different from his opponent. It's not long before he's pinned, spines folded down painfully, someone's claws digging into his throat. And his arm, his left arm, it's torn ragged and bleeding at his shoulder, and he can't _move_ it without pain unimaginable -

"What did you think you were going to accomplish here, shallow-water princeling?" his opponent hisses into his ear.

Rosch gathers together all his spiris - it's never courage he's lacked. "The moon," he commands, as bravely as he can manage. "I need to have my eyes opened to the moon, so that I can be grown and take on the king's crown -"

There's a single huff of bubbles into his ear, bitterly amused. Not a laugh. Never a laugh. "What makes you think you deserve to be king?"

"My father is king," Rosch protests, "And his father before him - I deserve by family to inherit -"

"You deserve nothing," his captor answers, cold. "Spoiled shallow-water prince, without a day of trouble in his life until but this week - what do you know of ruling?"

Rosch raises his voice to protest, but to his surprise the claws around his throat loosen - only to be replaced by the violent blow of a tail against his head. Stunned, arm ripped to shreds, the mer drops away; what follows him is nothing but, "The moon will come to you when you have earned her!"

Rosch spirals down, down, down into the dark.

(Time passes, chill as the grave.)

When Rosch opens his eyes again, it's to a faint moaning. "Rosch," someone repeats, over and over, "Rosch..."

The prince thrashes around (he's on another sandy surface, but deeper, he can feel it in the pressure above him) with his one good arm to face the noise. Tiny orbs of light glitter in the darkness on all sides of him, drawing closer. Though despair rises in his chest, he bares his teeth, ready to fight again -

"Rosch," whispers one side. "Rosch," whispers another. And then - "Rosch, give me your eyes..." "Rosch, I need your voice, give me your voice -"

Horrified, Rosch flails upright with violent swings of his tail. He spins in circles, breathing fast - mer approach him from all sides, all under anglerfish stalks, all with wide and haunted eyes. "Give me your spines, Rosch..."

"Give me your arm, Rosch," a familiar voice begs softly, and Rosch freezes. He knows that sound. That... but Rowan has been dead and gone for years, after the worst possible accident - trapped in an underwater cave-in with his arm pinned, unable to fight his way free before the entire thing fell slowly and inexorably down and smothered him. Sonja's brother, and he's still dearly missed both by her and Rosch, but -

"Your arm, Rosch," whispers Rowan. "I need your arm, Rosch, give me your arm, please..."

Rosch chokes back a horrified sob, undamaged hand clapping over his mouth. Suddenly he understands.

Everyone around him is a ghost.

"Your hands -" "Your fins -" "Your heartbeat -"

"Rosch, please," Rowan pleads mindlessly, and finally Rosch can't take it anymore.

"TAKE IT," he yells at Rowan, tail churning up sand, trying to blink back the tears bubbling into the water around him. 

Rowan's wraith doesn't need any more urging. He darts forward and _rips_ Rosch's damaged arm free, and both it and him dissolve away as his light blinks out.

The other ghosts crowd in closer as if hungry, now that the wishes of one of them has been fulfilled. Orbs of light crowd Rosch's vision like a gross parody of the stars he's never been able to see.

"Give me your stripes, Rosch, so I could be seen in the dark as I lay dying with no one to care enough..."

"Give me your voice, Rosch, so I could call out to my children..."

"Give me your heartbeat, Rosch, to replace my failing one..."

"Take them!" Rosch screams back, voice hoarse and shattered. So many dead, so many he didn't _know_ about, all but for Rowan, and he should have. He was their prince, to be their king, he was set to replace his father two years after his growth to adulthood and he knew _nothing_. Oh, he cared, in a sort of distant way; he never wanted harm to come to anyone. But he'd never held any responsibility, had never even tried to look out for the subjects outside of his immediate thought, too worried in concealing his own troubles with the moon. How did he ever think he could have been king?

Ghost after ghost peals in. They take his eyes, they take his hair, they take his fins, they take his spines. They tear away his voice, his skin, his beating heart, his gasping lungs. They pull out each rib, one by one, agonizingly; pluck free his vertebrae. They strip each vein from his flesh, and take that besides. Soon, there is nothing left of Rosch but nothing.

He drifts.

(Sand swirls, down in the depths.)

Eventually, another light drifts closer in the dark. Rosch watches without eyes as the seal-like mer settles down beside him, tail curving to shield the nothing of him from the currents. The seal's angler-light bobs quietly.

"That wasn't a fair challenge to make you," the seal-mer says, soft. "You'd been sheltered from it all your life by those around you - you weren't ready, but no one would have been."

Rosch can't respond. He has no voice, after all. But though the seal's expression barely appears to have changed, _something_ in it is more gentle. "You understand now, though. It's not a king's place to be king - he deserves it only if he's willing to give everything of him to his subjects."

Another few minutes pass in silence. Then the seal-mer's head tilts back, angler-light jumping. There's nothing he can possible see in the dark, and yet - he heaves himself up from the sand, tail flicking. "Time to put you back together again."

And so he does. The seal brings back long pointed stones, and they become Rosch's bones; he unearths Sonja's shell bracelet from the sand, and with it he replaces Rosch's heart. He finds Rosch's net-pack, wrapped so carefully by the prince's parents, and it grows into Rosch's skin. The seal replaces all but his arm, and as Rosch watches in wonder, that grows back by itself.

It bursts back pearlescent and glowing, an arm made of moonlight. 

"And you?" Rosch asks with his regained voice, lifting his eyes to meet the seal's. "What do I give you, to free you as well?"

The seal seems startled by the question, as if he never expected it. Then he smiles, faintly. "I am no ghost, Rosch; the reason I'm below is a different one. But, though I've no need of freeing..." He pauses, and it's the least sure Rosch has seen this violent, sharp-pointed mer yet. "...a kiss?"

Unlike the other mer, Rosch doesn't hesitate. He presses his lips to the seal's, and feels a surprised burst of bubbles in his mouth - the seal really wasn't expecting him to agree, was he? The seal - _Stocke_ , he knows, suddenly - relaxes, hands coming up to thread through Rosch's hair. 

The angler-light blinks out. Stocke remains a solid presence, again smiling faintly against Rosch's mouth. "Go, prince," he says, and it's far more fond than the insults he was spitting what feels like millenia ago; then he _shoves_ Rosch, and the lionfish rockets upward. It takes less than a second for him to splash above the surface, though he was so far underwater before, and -

For the first time in his life, Rosch sees the moon and stars.


End file.
